Seoul Auction to offer rare modern artworks at upcoming auction

Seoul Auction will put eight artworks by internationally acclaimed South Korean artist Lee Ufan up for auction and unveil “On the Road,” by the late modern painter Park Soo-keun, at an upcoming auction. Their combined value is around 12 billion won ($99.7 million).

The auction, which will be held Wednesday at Seoul Auction’s Gangnam Center in southern Seoul, will feature major works from Lee, including “From Point,” “From Line,” “With Winds” and “Dialogue.” One of the artist’s latest artworks, produced in 2015, “Dialogue” features wine-colored brush touches that gradually disappear into the white background.

Korea’s representative modern painter Park Soo-keun’s “On the Road,” which Park worked on in his later years, will be unveiled to the public for the first time at the auction after being owned by a collector in the US. The work is expected to sell for 350 million to 700 million won, according to the auction house.

Seoul Auction, Korea’s first auction company, established in 1998, hosts art auctions trimonthly. It opened its Hong Kong branch in 2008, aiming to introduce modern and contemporary Korean art to world-class collectors.

The upcoming auction will showcase 150 artworks worth around 12 billion won, and they can be viewed on an electronic catalog on its website.

The auction will also include a real estate property, something that is rarely offered at an auction event. The Nonbat Art School in the Heyri Art Village in Paju, northwest of Seoul, has an estimated value of 3 billion to 4 billion won. The Nonbat Art School was mainly used as a multiplex cultural space, housing indoor art galleries, cooking spaces and guesthouses.

The design of the three-story building, which is situated along a mountain slope, is the work of seven contemporary Korean artists, including Choi Jung-hwa and Park Ki-won. A virtual reality tour of the art school is available at the Seoul Auction’s website.

By Park Yuna (yunapark@heraldcorp.com)